February Drudion

February 2011ce

From atop the Neolithic capstone of Wayland’s Smithy, in Oxfordshire, the Archdrude salutes the winter sunset in the shape of a ‘Tyr’ rune. (Photo: A. De La O)

Hail Motherfuckers, Seer-Suckers, Sisters, Maidens, Brethren All,

What the actual fuck do I see in the papers and all over the press this past month? What is it, kiddies, this thing? This abject v-neck sweater wall-eye geek, this Devil’s Little Worker, this Golum that – clad in the righteous guise of a longhair brother – hung backstage during my DARK ORGASM tour and even text-shared my own dear wife’s appetite for football. No way. It cannot be true. But it is. This truly adventuresome and spikey beast that called himself Mark Stone was in actuality an Undercuntingcovercuntingcop. One Mark Kennedy. Okay, so we in the Protest Movement had known a lot of this since late-ish last year, but did you really have to sign up with M. Clifford for the biggest splash and ‘fess up to the MAIL ON SUNDAY, Mark? That kangaroo court you invented for them? So many outsiders – me included – were pushing for nailing you up, you knobhound! But however hurt and anguished your Protester Homeys felt, they all refused to do you physical harm of any kind. You bastard betrayer psychic rapist, you serial sexual violator, you deserve to fucking swing. Love Julian, not.

RADIO TRANSMISSION by The Paul Kidney Experience

Right, now we’re schlepping over to the Reviews Section where it sounds as though a pack of ravenous Black Metal grizzlies have taken over, and are currently feeding on various Sunburned Hand of the Man members, each wired up with throat mikes through cheap Soviet analogue synths. But no, this colossal brainstorm is just RADIO TRANSMISSION the latest 45-minute meditation, nay, medication from Melbourne’s futuristic spectral army The Paul Kidney Experience. Brothers,n’sisters, this is the S H I T !!! Comprised of just two 12” vinyl side-long pieces – ‘Dustberries’ and ‘Tardigrades’ – the canny and guru-like Mein Hairy that calls himself Paul Kidney has eclipsed allcomers with as rampant a musical assault as I’ve endured in half-a-decade! Nihilist Spasm Band? Fergetabahtit! Kim Fowley’s ‘California Hayride’? Conventional pish compared to this. Death Comes Along? Hääre? Now yooz approaching these Kidney druids’ pleasure centres. Indeed, for sheer sustained belligerence… well, let’s just say this debut is the musical equivalent of Cromwell’s troops entering Wexford, or a 1937 Japanese beheading contest on the outskirts of Nanking. Yup, Weez talking the kind of levels of heathenism that has cults forming and temples emerging, kiddies. Released on Melbourne’s Sunshine and Grease label (www.myspace.com/sunshinegrease), this is music of the new consciousness, a radical departure from the 20th century despite its nominally ‘freak-out’ nature. And, like my own Black Sheep project, Paul Kidney’s rackety ensemble of cave-dwellers is perfectly placed for the post-Edisonian future so gloriously predicted by Peak Oil freaks everywhere. To the members of the ensemble, and to Mr Kidney himself, I declare ‘Bravo Motherfuckers; you’re taking me D O W N !!! And your press release mentioning HOLY MOUNTAIN was spot-on! Come on!

WATER WEALTH HELL ON EARTH by Megaton Leviathan

And while we’re still lummoxing about in the psychic Down-in-it, let’s next celebrate the release of WATER WEALTH HELL ON EARTH, the epic debut from American Sludge-Trudgemeisters Megaton Leviathan, whose glorious and seemingly perpetual permafrost meditations invade your living space from the moment the needle hits the deck. Chiming with elliptical single chords, buzzing with post-Khanate seismic percussion blasts, this band’s music exists at all times at a huge ritualistic level that occupies the kind of doom headspace that Spacemen Three would have hit had they substituted their Velvets drone fixations with satanic B. Sabbath riffery. Released on Féretro Records (www.feretrorecords.com), theirs is a monumental sound fer shit-damn-sure, and one which has me spinning this disc again and again. Best moments of all are surely the 33-minute closer ‘A Slow Death in D Minor’, whose circular stumblings alone merit the purchase of this fine fucker. So be sure you check out this essential dose of Mung Worship, and/or salute the aforementched druids via www.myspace.com/megaton-leviathan. It’s a beautiful thang!

‘Midnight Cobras’ 7" by Tonstartssbandht

Okay, now I know I rarely review 7” singles, but for the ‘Midnight Cobras’ 7” by New York’s Tonstartssbandht, I just gots to make an exception. Fucking hell, brothers’n’sisters, this is just so raucous and chant heavy, so brutally Garage Glam, so drum & bass led and, therefore, so compelling that I had no other choice than to big up this sucker. Forget getting 25 people in a VW, these druids stuck those same 25 in a five-foot-square vocal booth and made’em sound like 200! What a racket indeed; sounds like SLADE ALIVE if it had been committed to tape during a military coup, sheesh! Released on the Canadian Psychic Handshake label (www.myspace.com/psychichandshake), ‘Midnight Cobras’ is such an essential addition to your vinyl collection you could even chuck out a few of your lesser garage seven inches to make room; this over-achiever has just rendered them suckers obsolete. Yowzah!

THE SIRENS TOO SANG THAT WAY by Meddlesome Meddlesome Meddlesome Bells

Next up, I got a lot of great things to say about THE SIRENS TOO SANG THAT WAY by Philadelphia trio Meddlesome Meddlesome Meddlesome Bells who, despite taking their name from a Sunn0))) song, bring forth a kind of inspirational (and highly bass-informed) post-agricultural rock-tumult that artfully utilizes the expanded time horizons of these post-Doom Days in order to explore an ambient balladry somewhat akin to N. YOUNG’S so-strung-out-its-meditative ZUMA-meets-TIME FADES AWAY period as though aided by a crackle-mouthed Kate & Anna McGarrigle and Matt Perzinski’s Agrarians. Phew. Add to this heady, always rustic and genuinely psychedelic brew the astute gorgeousness of the CD packaging, and yooz gotta great deal to buy into regarding these motherfuckers. Released on the band’s own Some Bells label (www.somebells.com), this is a superb beginning, brothers’n’sisters.

FASTER THAN SPEED by Mr. Peter Hayden

As are the two gigantic 30-minutes-plus meditations contained on FASTER THAN SPEED by the confusingly-named Finnish sextet Mr. Peter Hayden, a moniker so straight that I approached this disc with a sense of foreboding, somehow expecting to hear rock made by accountants or some such shit. But no, kiddies, the gargantuan music of Mister Peter Hayden emerges from the depths with all the monotonous subtlety of Tony Conrad, LaMonte Young, even Parson Sound, building imperceptibly over a full half-hour to a fantastic and highly moving crescendo. Deploying an unlikely line-up of three guitarists, two percussionists and a bass player, Mr. Peter Hayden throughout this entire album create a perplexing and huge sound indeed, the second massive track – intriguingly named ‘Δt=o’ – commencing with seven minutes of balmy soporifics before unleashing a monolithic and monotonous bass heavy riff that displays a fabulously Germanic progrock brutality somewhat in the vein of Die Krupps or even Peter Frohmader’s thunderous Nekropolis jamming on B. Sabbath’s ‘Snowblind’. I mean, C’Mon! Released on Winter Records (www.myspace.com/winterrecords), in a highly attractive die-cut front-opening cover that apes Ash Ra Tempel’s legendary debut, this is an essential purchase for all you space travelers on a heavy budget; hell kiddies, each 33-minute epic offers such a radically different and useful Weltanshauung that you could meditate, exercise or even just bask in an All Night Orgy of cunted timelessness. What? They’re that much on ye programme? Yup, THAT much on ye programme.

SPACE ROCK TULIP by 3 Leafs

Finally, Vinyl of the Month award must go to the fabulous SPACE ROCK TULIP by San Francisco quintet 3 Leafs, whose series of six huge pieces translate on this disc into one gigantic ‘vast eternitie’ of compelling post-Krautrock of the most persuasive variety. Psychedelic, disorientating and hugely pleasurable FX buffet listeners at all times. Unknown exotic instruments punctuate the sonic boundaries, while the distant and thunderous rhythm section pulses deep into the cranium. And all the time, seering guitar mung informed by oodles of antron-sized reverb irrigates the middle distance. It’s as though the entire mix was in the magickal hands of Dieter Dierks whilst at his Cosmic Jokers height. And even better is Warren Huegel’s fabulous drumming contained herein: for while many contemporary US underground outfits are ruined by the backwards-looking arena sensibilities of their drummers, these druids is far too sussed to let their sticksman get away with any such kack. Indeed, this marvelous record sounds as though it was captured so naturally that the five band members were barely aware of the recording process. Beautiful; spirited and inventive and beautiful. Self-released and available via www.myspace.com/3leafs, SPACE ROCK TULIP is a mighty useful and highly enjoyable debut from these five San Fran spacemen. Git down!

Right, before I quit, I’d just like to remind you to look out for my impending retrospective THE JEHOVAHCOAT DEMOS, which should be surfacing on our Merchandiser in the next few weeks. I gots to say, kiddies, that this 1993CE album represents to me a superb doorway period, displaying all of the elements contained within the grooves of JEHOVAHKILL, RITE, even elements of my first Queen Elizabeth release. Moreover, the 15 new tracks are accompanied by five previously unpublished poems, plus a whole slew of notes and instructions from that period. So do please search out this ornery beast if slithery Yggdrasil bass, wa-guitar mung, orchestral concussion and a sonically unbalanced attitude to rock’n’roll are all major contributors to locating your psychic pleasure centres.